


golden hour

by hardlythewiser (sequinedfairy)



Category: Men's Basketball RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-12 12:50:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19132375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequinedfairy/pseuds/hardlythewiser
Summary: klay’s a single dad and steph’s his daughter’s kindergarten teacher. u kno the drill.





	golden hour

**Author's Note:**

> this fic has pre-story off screen parental death! it’s a fairly significant theme but mostly alluded to.
> 
> thanks to @nahco3 for showing me basketball, reading this, and so much else

Klay unbuckles Ella from her carseat, and she leaps out of the car, fearless. A year ago, after Klay had spent three hours watching youtube videos about how to put a carseat in a new car, desperate to keep anything familiar for Ella as her entire life as she knew it ended, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, make that jump, had to wait to get picked up and put on the ground. Now she squirms past him, knowing better than to charge off into the parking lot but bouncing in excitement.

All around them, moms and dads are walking hand in hand with their kids, every kid looking almost as excited as Ella. Klay always worries that days like this, where everyone has their parents, will pull Ella back into a place of grief too big to be contained in her little body. They made it through Mothers’ Day, Open House, Christmas: Ella braver than she should have to be, Klay doing his best not to make it worse. But it seems like today, with its promise of bouncy houses and unlimited sugar, has enough distractions to keep her present.

Just as Klay is reaching for Ella, psyching himself up for four hours of talking to pitying moms and awkward dads, Ella shouts, “Mr. Curry!” Klay looks up to see Steph, earbuds in, waving at Ella as he walks toward them. Steph’s walking loosely, drumming his fingers on his thigh. He’s still Steph, not yet Mr. Curry. Klay starts to walk with Ella, but she’s rooted where she is, staring adoringly at Steph. 

Klay can only hope he’s a little more subtle.

Steph turns towards Ella, smiling. “Nice to see you, Ella,” he says, reaching his hand out for a high five. Ella gives him one, but doesn’t let go, dragging Steph a little closer.

“She wants to walk in with you,” Klay says, apologetically.

“My pleasure,” Steph says, falling in line with them. He’s dressed casually, a white t-shirt and jeans. Klay usually sees him dressed up for school, or down for basketball. Klay refuses to spend any more time thinking about his clothes, so.

“Are you excited for the fair?” Steph asks Ella, as though he hasn’t spent the past weeks exactly as Klay has, listening to one long monologue on the carnival of delights that will be the school’s Spring Fair.

Ella launches in right where she left off with Klay, on the promises her friend Caroline’s older brother Nicky made about the colors of cotton candy you can get, and Steph meets Klay’s eyes across Ella, crinkling his eyes in amusement.

Parenting Ella isn’t hard. It’s the hardest thing Klay’s ever done, but it’s so obviously the best that he can’t ever imagine not doing it. From the moment he got that call, every other road, from not tearing his ACL junior year to staying with his college boyfriend, faded away, and there was just the reality of Ella. But it’s hard to do it alone, to not have anyone to look at when she reads a book all on her own, or to confirm that he handled that splinter right.

That’s what’s so dangerous about Steph. Of course he feels like he could be that person, someone else to make sure Ella’s getting what she needs -- that’s his fucking job.

Klay smiles back. They’re almost at the school gate. He’ll let Steph go then.

***

They’ve been inside for twenty minutes. Klay and Ella have matching butterfly facepaint, a glitter tattoo each (he got a pawprint, she got a turtle), and a graffiti-style sign of Ella’s name with a dolphin leaping over the a. 

Klay’s exhausted, but Ella’s just getting started. She’s found Caroline, and is begging to wander around with her. Klay is happy to give her a little independence; the psychologist said it was important for her to have chances to see that she could leave and Klay’d still be there. He still hasn’t left her with a babysitter, but this might be good practice for both of them. He’s trying to find a place to tell her he’ll stay, one where he won’t look pathetic enough for the PTA moms to assemble around him, but obvious enough that she’ll be able to find him when she wants. 

“Can we get popcorn?” Caroline begs her mom, who’s trying to calm her overextended one-year-old. Her mom looks up, exhausted, and Klay steps in: “My treat.”

Ella and Caroline have matching grins, matching best friend necklaces, and matching sugar highs. He walks behind them over to popcorn, where -- of fucking course -- Steph’s behind a counter with a long line of kids in front of him, trying to listen to an older kid’s story while simultaneously scooping popcorn. 

“Can I help?” Klay asks, and Steph beams, his deep three smile, straight from the court. He steps aside to make room for Klay, and Klay starts scooping as Steph gently pushes the older kid away from the front of the line. 

With two of them, it goes faster, and they get through the line. Klay gives Caro and Ella a bag of caramel popcorn and tells them he’ll be right here when they come back, and then it’s just him and Steph, hip to hip behind the old-timey popcorn stand. Steph’s popping kernels into his mouth, long fingers dipping into the bag and sliding across his mouth.

It’s an elementary school fair. Klay needs Jesus. He should go with Steph one Sunday, but then Klay would just be perving on him in a church, and that seems even worse.

“I can’t believe they abandoned you to this job alone,” Klay says, trying to pull himself away from his thoughts.

Steph laughs. “Thanks for helping out. There was supposed to be a mom, but I guess she dipped.”

“I’m just grateful to have a job,” Klay confesses. “I think anytime I’m alone the PTA president has mandated that at least three people check in on me.”

Steph laughs, and asks him if he saw the Warriors game last night. That carries them through to the next rush.

***  
A few hours in, they’re a seamless team. Steph handles the kids and the parents, makes faces at younger siblings and ignores moms flirting with him, and Klay scoops popcorn. When it’s slow, they shoot popcorn into a cup. Steph’s losing, but only because he keeps eating it instead. 

The fair is winding down around them, parents carrying exhausted kids out to cars, a couple meltdowns happening in the periphery. Steph’s telling Klay about Seth’s season with the d league when Ella reappears. Klay catalogues her changes: she’s got a few more glitter tattoos, some streaks of chocolate on her mouth and one on the tip of her nose, and she’s holding herself upright with will alone. She’s twenty minutes from a crash, Klay estimates. 

“Klay,” she says, confounded by how to get around the booth, too tired to for even a “Mr. Curry!”

Klay reaches over and scoops her up. “Hey, bud,” he says, sliding her onto his hip. “You ready to go home?”

She frowns. “No,” she says, over-enunciating, “we can’t leave before it ends.”

“Actually, it’s ending now,” Steph says, smoothly, reaching over to gently tousle her hair. “I’m leaving too.”

Ella’s had a year of learning to listen to Steph, and it’s the permission she needs to tuck her head into Klay’s chest, to stop protesting. Klay mouths “Thank you,” and Steph runs his hand over his hair.

“Thanks for helping me out all day,” Steph says, grabbing a paper towel to clean off the counter.

“Can we give you a ride home?” Klay asks. It’s stupid, but everything he’s done today has been stupid. It’s the last day of school. Klay can detox during the summer, go to Orcas Island with Ella, skip some pick-up games, stop enabling this crush. He’ll give himself one more night of pretending.

Steph nods, and they walk out together, Steph saying hi to every kid by name. Klay can see some of the moms looking curiously at the two of them.

Ella wakes up a little when Klay puts her back in her carseat, starts a running monologue on all the rides she and Caro went on, and how Nicky helped them play some incomprehensible game, and how they saw Anna and Omar and Eli. Steph gets into shotgun and Klay puts on his evening driving mix, the Ella-appropriate one, and Ella keeps talking until the bridge of the first song, at which she goes abruptly silent. Klay looks into the rearview mirror to see her conked out, and he starts laughing as Steph does too.

There’s the bay in the distance, and Steph beside him, Ella in the back. It’s pretty close to perfect.

“Well, she didn’t get her talking genes from you, that’s for sure,” Steph says.

“My sister -- she was always the loud one,” Klay says. The cool air is rushing past his face, his eyes firmly on the road. Mom’s so much more important than sister, he hasn’t really -- he doesn’t think about her as a kid a lot. Kicking him out of the living room to choreograph dances with her friends, talking through every movie they watched as a family till he threatened to smother her with a pillow. Her kind face when he told her he was gay, in the dark of the porch sneaking beers from their parents. 

The car’s quiet, but it doesn’t feel awkward. Steph reaches over, telegraphing his movements, and squeezes Klay’s shoulder. Klay relaxes it down, takes a deeper breath. “We had the biggest fights when she’d call one of her friends and crash the dial up while I was playing games. She always said it wasn’t her fault I was a loser.”

Steph laughs, looks at Klay. Leaving space for him to say more.

The song changes, and Klay starts singing, softly, a little off-key. After a second, Steph joins in in harmony.

***

They’re getting off the freeway when Steph takes a deep breath. “Can I make you guys dinner?” tumbles out as though Steph pushed it.

“Ella’s probably gonna only have an apple,” Klay says, “but if you want to, sure.”

Maybe Steph likes to cook for other people.

Klay pulls into the driveway, and Steph gets Ella before Klay can, walking a half-step behind, waiting for Klay to open the front door. Klay wishes he were in front, so he could memorize this, Steph’s golden skin in the golden hour, Ella wrapped around him, the oak behind them with each leaf perfectly set off. 

He looks back as he opens the door, holds it wide for Steph. The sight’s worse than he imagined: Steph’s smiling down at Ella. 

He holds out his arms for Ella, and Steph hands her over. Rocco bounds over to them, barking ecstatically, and Steph kneels down to pet him and keep him from tripping Klay. After removing Ella’s sneakers, Klay kicks off his own, walks to the kitchen. He finds an apple on the counter to cut into pieces, but Steph takes it from him, slices it into the thin slices Ella likes.

Klay perches her on the counter, and she wakes up a little, scowling. He knows from experience she needs to eat something before bed, or he’ll have her in his bed at 2AM, ravenous and cranky. He looks up to ask Steph to grab peanut butter, but he already has, is spreading it on the apples.

She’s kicking her feet against the drawers, heavy, and Steph hands Klay the plate. She eats five slices, and then faceplants into Klay.

Carrying her up into bed, Klay tries to be present. He doesn’t bother putting her in pajamas, just one of her dad’s t-shirts, and tucks her in. She’s out before he steps away, and he stands by the bed for a little. Her stuffed dog, Rocky, is down by her feet, and the redwood is standing tall outside her window. The windowsill is lined with carefully-arranged My Little Ponys, and on the nightstand is Bunnicula, a jelly bracelet Caro gave her, and two pictures in a frame, Ella with her mom and dad and Ella and Rocco both soaked from the ocean. He remembers the first night she slept the whole night in her room, the celebratory french toast they had the next day. He still sits with her each night until she falls asleep curled around the dip his body makes.

It’s not perfect, this life, but it’s theirs. He can’t fuck it up.

When he comes back downstairs, he can smell garlic heating up. Rocco’s eating his dinner like he’s a starving stray, as always, splashing water onto the ground. Steph looks up, a little bashful, from where he’s opening a jar of tomato sauce. “I’m not actually a very good cook,” he confesses.

“It’s okay,” Klay says, but it’s a little detached. It’s like having one of those men ancient Greeks died for in his kitchen: a demigod maybe, or Achilles, someone more than mortal. He’s used to feeling like that on the court, but it’s harder, having it in his house.

Steph salts the water, pours the pasta in, empties out the jar of sauce. Klay should offer to help, tell him he doesn’t have to, but he’s tired. It’s been a long day, a long year.

Klay always understood why Hephaeston stuck around as long as he could.

Steph finds Klay a beer in the fridge, opens one for them both. The sauce is bubbling, and Steph’s phone timer goes off. He makes two plate, gives Klay some grated cheese, and takes a long gulp of beer.

Klay doesn’t move from his perch. Anything he does right now to make this feel more real, eating at the table, being a decent host, is just going to make it hurt worse.

“So, all done with kindergarten,” Steph says.

Klay stabs a bowtie pasta -- now the only kind Ella will eat. Last month it was orzo, so this is an improvement. “Yeah,” he says. “She -- We couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks.”

Steph takes another gulp, shrugs the compliment off. “She’s a great kid. You’re a great dad. You guys would have been fine.”

The kitchen feels smaller than usual: it’s not often anyone but Klay and Ella in it. Steph’s still looking at him, and Klay focuses on his pasta.

No one’s cooked him a meal since the last time his mom visited, over February break. Steph put some spinach in, which was nice.

Steph puts down his beer, hard enough that it rings against the counter. “There’s a lot of rules. About parents.”

“Thanks for illegally following me on instagram,” Klay says.

Steph huffs out a laugh. “It’s for -- you never want to show favoritism, you know. Towards the kids.”

“Well, it’s not your fault Ella is so clearly the best.”

Suddenly, the air in the room changes. Steph steps forward, and Klay can see him aiming his dagger, ready to sink the basket and crush the other team, done fucking around and ready to win. He slides in between Klay’s thighs, wraps his hand around the back of Klay’s head, and pulls him in for a fierce kiss.

Klay responds on instinct -- when Steph moves like that, Klay follows him, gives him what he needs to make the shot. He opens up his mouth, and Steph slides his other hand to Klay’s splayed-open thigh, tilts his head to the side. Klay slides his hands up Steph’s back, feeling the bones he watched take so many jump shots, angelic. 

Steph pulls away, barely an inch between their mouths. “You’re impossible,” he complains. 

Klay still feels dumbstruck, but the happiness is filling him without a conscious choice. “You’re straight,” he says without conviction.

Squeezing the hand he has wrapped around Klay’s thigh, Steph says, “No. And you’re not my parent anymore.”

“Oh,” Klay says. He’s not sure what else to say, so he leans in for another kiss, opens himself up to Steph. He’ll take this, anything Steph wants to give him.

***

Klay presses Steph down to the bed. They’ve let Rocco out and back in, made out on the couch, shirts rucked up but still on in case Ella appeared. Finally, they’re in Klay’s room, Steph’s legs wrapped around Klay. The windows let in enough light for Klay to see the outline of Steph, the white of his teeth as he smiles.

Steph’s fingers, that curl around a basketball so beautifully, help a kid trace a capital S, dig into Klay’s shoulders. Klay kisses him again, feeling Steph sigh against him as he carefully puts a little more weight on him. After the first kiss, Steph stopped pushing as hard; his bravery was for the first step off the cliff, but Klay’s piloting them now. 

Klay doesn’t mind. He’s got a lot of ideas.

Steph’s shirt is getting in the way of them, so he pull back just enough to pull it off, Steph curling up to help him along the way. Steph’s always smaller close-up than he seems when you’re watching him, lean muscle and precise movements, fitting right underneath Klay. Klay starts sliding down, and Steph lets out a wordless gasp, tightens his fingers around Klay.

He kisses his way down Steph’s torso, leaving room for Steph to pull him up, but Steph just lets his hand fall open on the bed, fingers curling and uncurling as Klay gets nearer to his waistband. The button of his jeans gleams, and Klay thumbs it open as he bites the top of Steph’s hipbone. Steph exhales sharply, and Klay can see the bulge of his dick pressing against the zipper. 

It’s been a while since Klay’s done this, and even longer since he’s done it sober, so he takes a second, unzipping Steph’s jeans, breathing hot over his dick. He’s psyching himself up to start when he feels Steph’s fingers interlacing his where they’re resting on his waistband. He looks up, and Steph squeezes his hand, smiling down at him in the dark.

Klay relaxes. It’s Steph, but it’s just Steph. He pulls down Steph’s Calvin’s just enough, savors his first look. Steph squirms a little underneath him, embarrassed, and Klay presses his other hand to Steph’s hip. 

During pick-up games, Steph’s stupid leggings prevent any flash of thigh, so Klay relishes pulling down jeans and underwear, finally getting to look and touch. They’re slim but defined, paler than the rest of him, a scar from his knee surgery in college running halfway up his right thigh. Klay could spend the rest of his life with them tight around his shoulders. He leans down, moving slowly, and sucks the tip of Steph’s dick into his mouth. Steph huffs out a breath that’s almost a word, then becomes muffled, biting his forearm. 

Klay works his tongue around the head, tracking every shift in Steph’s thighs, every clench of his fist, every broken exhale. He goes down farther, builds up a rhythm. Steph’s all spread out for him, open for him, trying to stay quiet. Every time he makes a sound, Klay feels like he just sunk a shot past a relentless defender. 

Klay reaches his hand around, needing to grab Steph’s ass, and Steph’s knees fall open, a keen ripped from the back of his throat. Klay sinks down deep, scratching his nails down, and Steph pulls his hand from Klay’s, grabs Klay’s hair, moving his hips up helplessly.

They’re moving in tandem, Klay knowing what Steph needs before he does, and it builds and builds until Steph, moaning steadily now, tries to pull Klay off. Klay stays right where he is, rubs his thumb over Steph’s hole, and Steph bucks, coming apart.

Crouched there, Klay tries and fails to catch his breath. Steph drags him back up, pulls him on top. Steph still smells a little like popcorn, and Klay tucks his face into Steph’s neck, hears his heart pounding. Klay’s still dressed, rutting against Steph, and Steph frowns when his hands are blocked from Klay’s skin. 

“Ugh,” Steph manages, and Klay takes pity on both of them, pulls his sweater and jeans off as fast as possible. He just wants to see Steph covered in come, take him from marble statue to porn, to his. 

Steph reaches down, his hand still shaking a little, and wraps his hand around Klay. Klay gasps out, “Fuck, Steph,” and Steph ducks his head down as he grins.

Klay doesn’t even have the time to jerk himself off anymore, so he knows this really won’t take long, but he can’t bring himself to care. He’s just chasing that pleasure, trying to fall into it completely, eyes closed as his hips work. Steph kisses him again, slides a hand up his thigh, and Klay loses it, collapses on Steph so they’re stuck together. He wants it that way.

***

Klay drifts awake slowly, morning sun sliding through his eyelids, not quite there. His pillow’s soft, he could stay there all day -- except then his brain gets back online. Where’s Ella? Where’s Rocco? Why haven’t they woken him up yet?

He rolls out of bed, wincing at the dried come on his hips and stomach. He pulls his boxers off the ground and wipes himself off. He’s too worried about Ella to worry about Steph -- if Steph left, he has the whole summer to marinate in humiliation before he has to see him again. 

He grabs a t-shirt and sweats from his drawer, pulls them on as he stumbles down the stairs. Halfway down, he stops. Ella is sitting on the counter of the kitchen, kicking her feet against the drawers, as Steph flips a piece of french toast in a pan. Rocco’s lying by his food bowl, belly up and paws flopped over. 

It’s everything he’s wanted, spread out before him. Klay can’t breathe for fear of breaking the picture, losing it all. 

Ella sees him first, shouting, “Klay! Mr. Curry is making you breakfast in bed!” Steph looks up, a little bashful, and it pushes Klay out of his frozen state, carries him down to the kitchen.

“Now that you’re a first grader, you can call me Steph,” Steph says, still not looking quite at Klay. “If that’s okay with you,” he says to Klay.

The counter is a mess. Steph obviously let Ella crack an egg, so there’s shards on the counter and the floor, yolk dripping down. Ella’s drinking OJ, which always gives her a sugar crash if she has it before breakfast. The milk cap is under Rocco’s paw, which is disgusting, and Ella’s definitely fed him some bread. 

Klay looks up, smiles, takes a leap of faith. “Of course,” he says. “I think Steph’s gonna be hanging out with us a lot this summer.”


End file.
